Fantasy 2022 - ALPHA League - Discussion

[balmainforever]

Alpha League · NFL

www.fleaflicker.com

 

[Exe Gesis]

Or we can keep the waiver rules as we always have - I actually like that about alpha compared to the other leagues in preseason as it actually creates value in the waiver order early season.

Still works tho. Nightly waivers thruout preseason...if you use a waiver claim you go to last on the queue still. So someone like me who has many holes and uses waivers a lot will constantly be last. Whereas people with a pretty set roster, already maxed at 38 or 40, would only sparingly use waivers during preseason and will maintain their higher waiver order.

Only reason in espn all these years we didnt finalize the draft was because waivers could only last a couple days and then everyone became unlocked. FF allows the whole post-draft to be waivers only, no need to shut the league down for a month.

 

[drd23]

Nightly waivers at almost anytime basically defeats the purpose of waivers, but having them in pre-season is especially stupid imo

 

[Exe Gesis]

Nightly waivers at almost anytime basically defeats the purpose of waivers, but having them in pre-season is especially stupid imo

What are you suggesting? Zero waivers at all times? Or just preseason?

The point of waivers in all fantasy is to ensure owners all get a fair crack at free agents. Not one person sitting online grabbing everyone while others work/sleep. Usually waiver order is worst team picks first every time, for parity.

Espn, you have no flexibility with options. Waivers process immediately and then its free for all till the season starts. We shut the league down all July/August so that no one could grab players free for all.

In FF you can at least create preseason/post-draft rules for waivers. You can then switch it off and allow the regular season waiver rules to be in effect.

So it makes sense post-draft to keep all of them on nightly waivers until the season starts, not a free for all all july and august

 

[drd23]

What are you suggesting?

No way to claim players in FA in preseason except for the last week or so.

The way it was in Omega this year with daily waivers that started in mid-July still benefits those that have the time to pour over training camp/pre-season news which can change daily.

 

[Exe Gesis]

No way to claim players in FA in preseason except for the last week or so.

The way it was in Omega this year with daily waivers that started in mid-July still benefits those that have the time to pour over training camp/pre-season news which can change daily.

Well, alpha on ff is aping alpha on espn at the moment. People disallowed from making waiver claims till sept 4.

 

[dspeed]

What are you suggesting? Zero waivers at all times? Or just preseason?

The point of waivers in all fantasy is to ensure owners all get a fair crack at free agents. Not one person sitting online grabbing everyone while others work/sleep. Usually waiver order is worst team picks first every time, for parity.

Espn, you have no flexibility with options. Waivers process immediately and then its free for all till the season starts. We shut the league down all July/August so that no one could grab players free for all.

In FF you can at least create preseason/post-draft rules for waivers. You can then switch it off and allow the regular season waiver rules to be in effect.

So it makes sense post-draft to keep all of them on nightly waivers until the season starts, not a free for all all july and august

Why are you changing anything? Nightly waivers during pre season does exactly what you said you are trying to avoid, the more active people getting the good players

I for one am not looking at NFL every day during the next 2 weeks

I’m ready to go on ESPN

 

[Exe Gesis]

I’m ready to go on ESPN

We've all gone to FF. People making their roster moves already. Awaiting you to join too. Majority decision already reached.

FF is better in the long run -- easier to manage as commish / co-commish, more flexibility, draft done thru the site, future trading done thru site, has better little player tools and daily news, etc.

 

[Exe Gesis]

No way to claim players in FA in preseason except for the last week or so.

The way it was in Omega this year with daily waivers that started in mid-July still benefits those that have the time to pour over training camp/pre-season news which can change daily.

Alpha on FF is already withholding waivers till Sept 4 anyway....but just to argue about waivers per se further.....

The draft every year starts July 1st. All the dynasty leagues on BF and around the world have to start at some point in time, often people arent 100% ready, draft slow to start, periods when it slows down again due to work/social life, even late rounds when people say they have no idea who to draft because they've been too busy to scout.

In alpha this year Wizard had little time, Dspeed and others pushing him to come on. Other years Dspeed had little time, admitted hadnt time to scout, and others pushing him to come on. Other years Balmain, other years Stuxnet had little time.

It happens every year in every league, people at various stages of being ready. But we continue with the draft, we even skip people. It's "expected" now of league members to be active, july-aug-sept.

Why would waivers during August be anti-fair? They are the dregs of the undrafted anyway. Why is it ok to skip people during the draft in July but not ok if someone in August missed a waiver night?

At some point, people in a league have to get back into fantasy mode to do the draft in July anyway So nightly waivers post-draft in August is a natural continuation. Especially as preseason games have now started, people buying gamepass and watching games or replays.

You can't totally get 100% commitment from league members year round, always people busy. Can't even guarantee during the season every member is even active anyway, making lineup changes, not starting bye/injured players.

Last few years we've seen Helfarch disappear mid season, people not respond to tags to rejoin and had to be replaced, people say theyre out too busy, people not active during season at various stages, bye/injured players galore as starters. Alpha, omega, cutthroat, empire, and all the other leagues on here, beta, 11th hour, sleeper etc, it happens.

People are always busy, struggle as we get older, jobs get more taxing, having babies, etc. Every year these leagues keep going best they can around everyone's free time.

But they still have to find a way if they're in a league to be active for the draft during July is the point. So having waivers post-draft (august) is natural.

Whether one night a week or nightly, it can be done, with no free for all. On FF. Not on espn. FF more options at least, no need to shut a league down.

The draft is the main part right? Once thats over, its up to people to be more or less active how they can, not just aug, but thru the season we cant stop people being less or more active and we dont shut a league down mid-october because someone is busy and cant submit a lineup

No complaints in Empire which goes year round, always stuff required from people -- re-signings in Feb, Auction in May. Draft in July. Nightly waivers in Aug -- because people suggested they should be allowed to grab players not have a league shut down before Sept. Remember? Blacky, BpG, you, etc

 

[dspeed]

TLDR

 

[drd23]

There's a lot of waffling that doesn't add much in that post, but it seems you've failed to understand the key point of rapidly changing information creating increased information asymmetry GG.

Draft boards/rankings in June/early July don't change much, as the information they are based on hasn't changed much - the draft was a month+ in the past, draft season before that etc

Things change rapidly during training camp - it only took what seems like a few days for Isaiah Pacheco to go from an after thought to a potentially viable mid round draft pick, for Romeo Doubs to seemingly be the better Packers rookie pick, for John Metchie's draft tock to plummet etc

The way that waivers worked in Alpha in the past (no way to pick up players between when their team's game started and Wednesday when waivers run) is probably the most fair way of doing it without going to FAAB

 

[Exe Gesis]

There's a lot of waffling that doesn't add much in that post, but it seems you've failed to understand the key point of rapidly changing information creating increased information asymmetry GG.

Draft boards/rankings in June/early July don't change much, as the information they are based on hasn't changed much - the draft was a month+ in the past, draft season before that etc

Things change rapidly during training camp - it only took what seems like a few days for Isaiah Pacheco to go from an after thought to a potentially viable mid round draft pick, for Romeo Doubs to seemingly be the better Packers rookie pick, for John Metchie's draft tock to plummet etc

The way that waivers worked in Alpha in the past (no way to pick up players between when their team's game started and Wednesday when waivers run) is probably the most fair way of doing it without going to FAAB

Pardon the waffling. Theres no perfect way and abstaining in August is full of logical holes too.

Two points, and they both matter. 1) availability 2) rapidly changing info

Ignoring those professional fantasy players, most fantasy players are regular joes, in all our leagues it's that. We are all busy and its not our career to be pro gamers/gamblers. So we're in a league at varying degrees of knowledge, scouting, and even simply times of day/week we can get online. Therell be times in October or December when someone is more active and more aware of rapidly changing info than someone else to grab some breakout player or rising sleeper on waivers that others didnt get a chance to or didnt know about. Why is it ok then, and ok in July draft, but somehow August is wrong? If half the league is not as active/clued in as the other half, why should the other half be disadvantaged? People come to a league with whatever availability/info they can muster and do the best they can.

Someone not active Sept-Dec, not submitting lineup, easy wins for rivals, playoff implications. That has more affect than an august waiver claim.

Someone isnt online and misses out on a big trade offer that went to someone else. Tough luck.

Rapidly changing info happens daily, from february thru to end of NFL season. There isn't a time when there isn't some new development...a player dies, arrested, suspended, gets injured, gets traded, gets called up to start, etc. Again, its up to league members to be as active as they can. If someone kinda just makes up the numbers, is very busy all the time, so be it. If someone is extra cluey and wins the comp every year, good on him. Its up to you how much you want to or can.

August specifically post-draft waivers is not as critical as you and others may make it out to be. The draft is where the top players go. August is just riff-raff. More important are waivers week 1 to week 18. Claiming players who are actually rising, a starter got injured and a backup is now gonna be the big time starter. All the August claims in Empire for instance are dart throws, 4th stringers. 95% of them will be cut and no one will care about them until suddenly one day, in October or November, one of them gets a starting job and THEN someone will claim him whilst others had no clue about him or didnt get a chance to be online that week for waivers.

Dynasty leagues are already picked clean anyway. Empire, Omega, Alpha, there arent any stars around. Post-draft waivers are mainly bad teams trying to fill holes anyway. Good on them for trying. Parity is the point of FA/waivers.

There are leagues where your rivals are all idiots and you clean up in the draft, waivers, and win the league easy. Is it your fault they're idiots? Are you supposed to be less smart for them?

 

[Exe Gesis]

Same as video games. Madden, Fortnite, CoD. If you're available to play online, up to you. If you get into the online communities and youtube videos, pick up all the info of tricks and cheese plays. Availability and new info go hand in hand. The rest of the world, Madden online etc, doesn't stop for you because you arent as available thus aren't aware of new info.

You entered a fantasy league, you play to win, or at least be good/competitive. Your ability to depends on your level of passion; availability and info hunting.

If you dig deeper into Ravens news, camp, forums, and know of some sleeper that others have no idea about because they don't follow the Ravens....same analogy. You'll draft him in the 6th round, or claim him August, or September...before others cotton on to him. Good on you.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Last example ...alpha specific...

Rosters like NDG, TGBB, dagless, Dspeed, Drd23, all maxed out with a top shelf 8 RBs and 8 WRs, say. Rosters are full, stars picked clean, FA pool full of nobodies.

NDG, dagless, etc don't even have to worry, not gonna cut a star wr to claim a scrub wr in august. It's the bad teams like me who have 20 roster spots open, only 3 or 4 WRs and RBs, who, if they care about trying to be better, will scrounge around in august, pick up 3rd string RBs and WRs, hoping maybe one of them turns out ok. And all the claims i kept making will keep me last in the order anyway for when the order matters (in-season).

And you know my team will still suck, NDG and Dagless will still win the comp, and all the darts i threw in august wont matter, maybe luck out with one, but it wont make a difference.

I made 300 more waiver claims than everyone last year, every year, and still have a bad roster, only 15-20 worth keeping. Due to bad drafting and trading. Waivers is always slim pickings to turn a team around.

Waivers aren't so critical when a dynasty league is picked clean. Rebuild takes a few years at least. Waivers is key in Cutthroat where there's no bench and FA full of stars.

Plus, because NDG and Dagless had such strong teams and could afford to not bother in august, their waiver order stays high, that one day, week 12, some 3rd string WR gets called up to start, has a huge game, they're gonna steal him with that high waiver order.

Therefore, august post-draft waivers "always on" till week 1 starts is not a bad or unfair or disadvantageous thing at all. It's a natural next-step after the draft till week 1 starts. Exactly the same as NFL teams signing UDFAs right after the draft -- most of them won't make the roster, maybe they find one.

If you care, want to be better, you'll try harder, find info, try making trades, make waiver claims. Good on you.

If you have a shit team, only 20 keepers, you'll use august hoping to find something, to fill up roster needs, but its still rubbish, you're still gonna be a bad team, you need more drafts/years.

If you have a top team, you're barely gonna need to use august post-draft waivers. You're sitting pretty, feel fat and happy, and can decide to be less active, go do other things till the season starts.

 

[dspeed]

Pardon the waffling. Theres no perfect way and abstaining in August is full of logical holes too.

Two points, and they both matter. 1) availability 2) rapidly changing info

Ignoring those professional fantasy players, most fantasy players are regular joes, in all our leagues it's that. We are all busy and its not our career to be pro gamers/gamblers. So we're in a league at varying degrees of knowledge, scouting, and even simply times of day/week we can get online. Therell be times in October or December when someone is more active and more aware of rapidly changing info than someone else to grab some breakout player or rising sleeper on waivers that others didnt get a chance to or didnt know about. Why is it ok then, and ok in July draft, but somehow August is wrong? If half the league is not as active/clued in as the other half, why should the other half be disadvantaged? People come to a league with whatever availability/info they can muster and do the best they can.

Someone not active Sept-Dec, not submitting lineup, easy wins for rivals, playoff implications. That has more affect than an august waiver claim.

Someone isnt online and misses out on a big trade offer that went to someone else. Tough luck.

Rapidly changing info happens daily, from february thru to end of NFL season. There isn't a time when there isn't some new development...a player dies, arrested, suspended, gets injured, gets traded, gets called up to start, etc. Again, its up to league members to be as active as they can. If someone kinda just makes up the numbers, is very busy all the time, so be it. If someone is extra cluey and wins the comp every year, good on him. Its up to you how much you want to or can.

August specifically post-draft waivers is not as critical as you and others may make it out to be. The draft is where the top players go. August is just riff-raff. More important are waivers week 1 to week 18. Claiming players who are actually rising, a starter got injured and a backup is now gonna be the big time starter. All the August claims in Empire for instance are dart throws, 4th stringers. 95% of them will be cut and no one will care about them until suddenly one day, in October or November, one of them gets a starting job and THEN someone will claim him whilst others had no clue about him or didnt get a chance to be online that week for waivers.

Dynasty leagues are already picked clean anyway. Empire, Omega, Alpha, there arent any stars around. Post-draft waivers are mainly bad teams trying to fill holes anyway. Good on them for trying. Parity is the point of FA/waivers.

There are leagues where your rivals are all idiots and you clean up in the draft, waivers, and win the league easy. Is it your fault they're idiots? Are you supposed to be less smart for them?

LOL Pardon the waffling then proceed to waffle endlessly. Mate I’m not even reading it. We don’t need access to players post draft until a few days out from the season

 

[Exe Gesis]

Instructions for Co-commishes on FF....

On FF, unlike espn, you have these options.

post-draft waivers + free for all
post-draft waivers + always on waivers.
post-draft always free for all.

You can choose however many days a week thru preseason waivers process. Best options are either nightly, or, one day a week.

Eg, every wednesday waivers process, then all the free agents stay locked till the next wednesday.

That's at least better than disallowing August activity imo for the future.

But as a co-commish, how to manage all this on FF for the future....

if you want to keep disallowing post-draft waivers you have to keep changing the waiver day to a day just elapsed a week ahead and keep doing it till Sept 4 arrives.

Eg, today is Sunday, on Saturday you set waivers for Friday. On Thursday you change the day to Wednesday. Etc till you get to Sept 4. Then you make sure you change the waiver rule back to "waivers + free for all after, process wednesday only" which is the official setting for alpha.

At least you can do that which you cant on espn. At least you can get all the drafted players in, force IR players off IR, etc.

You also have to before next draft starts play around with settings to ensure people can draft. You go to roster settings, choose custom, increase each position by double (so you remember what to bring it back to), and increase roster size to say 45 (in case people have like 15 draft picks). Then you post a deadline for roster cuts in the commish notice board, say Sept 4.

On Sept 5, if people haven't gotten back under, you go to each persons roster, on the side it displays how many players at each position they have and total roster size....which espn doesnt do. So its easy to see who is still over and where. Then you go into Edit Rosters setting and cut the necessary players and/or move them to IR to get people all under.

Once everyone is under, go back to Roster Settings, choose custom, and bring all the positions back to half (eg, WR from 16 to 8) and roster total size back to 40. Then save. And the season is ready. You cant change these settings until you get everyone back under first.

 

[manureid]

Wakes up to a wall of text. Anyone got any cliff notes?

 

[Dagless]

Legit two way too long posts of GG saying ‘this is a change that benefits me’ to justify making said change.

The best thing about Alpha preseason.

 

[Exe Gesis]

I'm debating drd that august waivers are unfair per se. My points are right. If someone doesnt have the time to read a little, to genuinely engage in a debate, then thats sad of todays social media short attention span.

 

[drd23]

Plus, because NDG and Dagless had such strong teams and could afford to not bother in august, their waiver order stays high, that one day, week 12, some 3rd string WR gets called up to start, has a huge game, they're gonna steal him with that high waiver order.

Yeah, except that's not how waivers are used in this league

I'm debating drd that august waivers are unfair per se. My points are right.

Three people have said it shouldn't be daily waivers but there's clearly no point in "debating" this if this is your thought process.

 

[Exe Gesis]

Wakes up to a wall of text. Anyone got any cliff notes?

• waivers arent critical in dynasty, FA pool picked clean of starters.
• waivers matter more in-season when some backup has a huge game, a starter gets injured, NFL rosters already at 53.
• waivers in august are dart throws on NFL udfas on 90 man rosters, most of them dont make the team.
• a strong team like ndg say wont need to use waivers in august, wont cut a top wr from his maxed out 8 to grab some scrub wr, it's there for bad teams to fill empty rosters
• but it wont make a difference, a bad team cant turn its team around in waivers, i make 300 every year and still have a bad team -- due to bad drafting and trades. Waivers aren't critical.
• rapidly changing info (drd23s only point) happens year round, feb to feb in the nfl. If you arent available at a certain point youll miss info, thats on you.
• new info can happen in november, if youre not online that week youll miss it, someone else will make a waiver claim, no different to new info in july, august, if youre around youre around.
• if half the league isnt as active/clued in with info as the other half, thats their problem

Etc

 

[drd23]

Wakes up to a wall of text. Anyone got any cliff notes?

GG thinks waivers in Alpha should be like in Empire and run everyday from whenever the draft ends to the end of the season

 

[Exe Gesis]

Yeah, except that's not how waivers are used in this league


Three people have said it shouldn't be daily waivers but there's clearly no point in "debating" this if this is your thought process.

No daily waivers, once a week waivers, during preseason is ok too. Better than none at all.

 

[Exe Gesis]

GG thinks waivers in Alpha should be like in Empire and run everyday from whenever the draft ends to the end of the season

No. Regular season still stays once a week, every wednesday. No reason why post-draft, thru august, you cant have waivers run either once a week at least (no free for all during preseason)

 

[manureid]

Need to have waivers near weekend as you can lose a player late and not be able to fill a spot

 

[Exe Gesis]

Need to have waivers near weekend as you can lose a player late and not be able to fill a spot

I'm arguing that having pre-season waivers thru august is fine. Either run nightly, or once a week (wed). During pre-season players are always on waivers, no free for all. So its fair.

But when the season is ready to start, waivers revert back to normal....run once a week (wed) and free for all after, like we already do.